


Commercial Company

by TheVagabondBoy



Series: 3's and 8's For The Back Row [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Alternate Universe - Truckers, Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Heartache, Heartbreak, M/M, References to Drugs, Steve Needs a Hug, bucky as a trucker, steve as a truckstop hooker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 00:50:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17756657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVagabondBoy/pseuds/TheVagabondBoy
Summary: Bucky and Steve try to make sense of things.





	Commercial Company

Bucky sighed as his phone rang. He kept his eyes on the road and tapped the stupid bluetooth ear piece thingy Natasha made him use when he was driving.

“Barnes,” he said in way of greeting.

“James.”

Speak of the devil and the devil comes knocking.

“What’s up, Nat?”

“Pierce is getting impatient. He’s wondering where his shipment is.”

“Tell him it’s on its way. I’ll be in LA by noon. They can get it unloaded and distributed by three, if all goes smoothly.”

“Good. Dealers’re running low on merch. Demand is higher than ever.”

“It always is. You still thinkin’ about fleein’ the coop?”

Natasha sighed. “Every day. My buddy Clint said he can take me up in his plane. Drop me as far away as he can. After that... Well, you know me. I’ll figure it out as I go.”

“Sounds like a nice plan. Don’t think I’d mind if I was on that plane right with ya.”

“Last I heard, Clint’s plane carries six passengers. I’ll save you a seat if you want me to.”

Bucky swallowed.

“Lemme think about it.”

He tapped the ear piece again and ended the call.

He wasn’t very far out from LA. Like he said, he’d be there in a few hours.

He wondered if he should, though. If he should go there, to the warehouse. He could just...call the police. Tell them what he was transporting. Turn state’s witness. They’d protect him, right? They’d hide him, give him a new identity, keep him safe. Or he could go with Natasha. Just...fly away. Go across the world and hide, live quietly.

It was a stupid idea. It was useless to be thinking about it. Pierce was a savage man. If he heard a shipment got turned over to the police, he’d do _anything_  to kill the driver who betrayed him. His people would find Bucky no matter where he went, no matter where he hid.

Bucky had half a ton of _cocaine_  in the truck. He knew how much that was worth. Not to mention the piles and piles of _actual, physical cash._

Pierce would rip him to pieces for it.

At least Steve wasn’t involved anymore. No matter what happened to Bucky, it wouldn’t hurt Steve. That was all that mattered.

*

Steve wasn’t even crying anymore. He’d fucking cried himself dry over the last three days, and he was done being sad.

Now he was just _angry._

“Steve, just calm down!” Peggy told him.

“No! I’m not gonna calm down, Peg!” he shouted, stomping around the motel parking lot. “God, he’s a fucking dickhead! _A cunt on legs!”_

Peggy snorted. “No, honey, that’s me.”

Steve hummed, pointing at her with his cigarette. “Very true.”

“Why are you even so obsessed with this _guy?”_  Peggy asked and sucked on her own cigarette. “One fuckhead called you a whore! _Boohoo, so what?_  He paid for his time and he left, _that’s what they do!_  In this particular business transaction, _that’s their job!_  And _our job_  is to just lay back and take it, and y’know what? We do it damn well!”

“Also very much true,” Steve admitted. “But this guy! _This guy!_  He’s not just- just _a guy!_  Okay? We just- there was _something!_  Something between us!

Peggy sighed. “Please tell me it was at least a condom.”

 _“I mean,_  besides the condom, Peg!”

The woman sighed again, exhaling a deep breath of smoke. She sat down on the curb as Steve stomped and paced and shouted.

“There was just this _something,_  okay?! A-And it was _so real,_  Peg! Felt so fuckin’ real! Like, realest thing I’ve ever felt! It was like he felt it too! I could _see_  him feeling it too! I could _see it_  on his dumb, stupid, handsome face!”

“Okay, Stevie! Let’s, for just a moment, _pretend_  this wasn’t your average John and he felt this _thing_  too. Then  _why_  would he be _such a dick_ < to you all of a sudden, huh?”

Steve sighed. He rubbed at his eyes. He shuffled over to the curb and sat down next to his friend. Peggy pet his hair, then wrapped her arm around him. Steve leaned into her embrace.

“I dunno. I just... It’s _stupid,_  I know, but I... I really just thought there was something real between us.”

“I know, baby,” Peggy said.

She pressed a kiss to his forehead. He could feel her stark red lipstick leave an imprint behind on his skin.

“He was just so nice to me and God, the way he looked at me... People don’t look at _people_  like that. People look at people they _love_  like that. So I thought... Am I an idiot, Peg?”

She kept petting his hair gently. It reminded him of his mother.

“No, baby, you’re not an idiot. You just... You thought you saw something that wasn’t there. It happens. It’s not your fault.”

Steve crushed his cigarette into the asphalt and sighed.

“Thanks, Peg. You’re the best.”

*

The air inside the bar was stuffy with the scent of stale sweat, cigarette smoke, and alcohol. Music played at a low volume somewhere in the background. This place really needed to chuck out their jukebox and _update._  Then again, everything in the box was a decent enough listen. Good enough for background noise, which, Bucky supposed, was all a place like this one needed.

He sat with Natasha at a small table in the back of the bar. They were both nursing their beers and sucking on cigarettes. Their conversation was soft and quiet. They couldn’t chance that anyone would hear.

“Tell me ‘bout the plan again.”

Natasha sipped her beer. “Make a call to Clint, get the plane ready. Make a call to my contact, meet up at a discreet location and give our statements. Grab what we can carry. Get on the plane. Gone before anyone’s the wiser.”

Bucky bit his lip. He liked the sound of it. He would have liked to do it. Just get on the plane and leave the country and never be bothered by Pierce again.

He worried, though. What if Pierce didn’t get convicted, didn’t go to prison? What if he found out who turned on him, who ratted him out? What if he came after them? What if he tracked them across the globe and found them wherever they were hiding and… Well, Bucky could only _imagine_  what kind of fucked up shit Pierce would do to get back at them.

He was relieved, still, that he had cut ties with Steve. At least this way, Pierce wouldn’t think twice about some random hooker Bucky fucked during a haul. If Bucky had gone to Steve more, even just another few times, then that would have been a _pattern._  Pierce had people who noticed patterns. They would have found Steve. They would’ve hurt him. Killed him.

It hurt to have things this way, but it was better than the alternative.

“I… I still need to think about it,” Bucky told Natasha.

She nodded. “Yeah. Me too. It’s…dangerous.”

“We have friends here. Lives,” he said lowly, staring into his glass. “Givin’ all that shit up… I dunno, man. Fuckin’ _hate_  my life, man, but… Givin’ it up still seems real hard to do.”

Natasha hummed in agreement, ashing her smoke in the empty shot glass in the middle of the table. “’Cause it’s _your_  life. Might suck as hell, but it’s still yours, y’know?”

“Where would we go?” Bucky asked, stopping for a moment to take a drag on his own smoke. “I mean, if we did it. Where’d we go? Where’d we hide?”

“You know me, I got places all over the world. And wherever I don’t got places, I got people who got places,” Natasha assured him with a grin. “We’d be fine. We’d have to stick together for a while. A couple months. ‘til we get out bearings, figure out our next moves and all that. But after that… We could go our separate ways. Do our own things. Maybe meet up now and then. Check in, make sure everyone’s still here and breathin’.”

Bucky nodded. He crushed out his cigarette in the shot glass.

“Got a couple days off before my next haul. _Fuck…_  I’ll think about it.”

“Okay. But… I’m doin’ it at the end’a the month. With or without you, I’m gettin’ out at the end’a the month. If you ain’t on that plane with me, you’ll be stuck here. I won’t be able to help you.”

The man inhaled a slow breath. He finished off the dregs of his beer and slid out of his seat.

“Thanks, Nat. I’ll…let you know.”


End file.
